


Young and Petrified

by Toomanynorns



Category: Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-20
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-27 03:13:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/973632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toomanynorns/pseuds/Toomanynorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of three ficlets about Petra's first year in Battle School, written for the Tumblr Ender's Game fandom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was quiet in the shuttle.

When Petra had left home, there had been hugs and kisses and tears. She was the brightest child, both of her parents and of the neighborhood. Because the neighborhood loved her parents, it loved her, and they had all come to say goodbye to her, bursting with pride and the firm knowledge that their Petra would shine even more brightly high up in the sky.

The contrast with the shuttle was overwhelming. Petra wiggled in her seat, uncomfortable. There was a boy sitting next to her but he didn't seem to be aware of her at all: he was staring at the carpeting on the wall, looking ill.

More boys piled into the shuttle. They were louder. There was pushing and shoving and yelling, but none of it seemed to reach her. None of it was directed at her, not the way it had been when she left. It was odd.

"Are you okay?" she asked the boy sitting beside her. The look he gave her was equal parts alarmed and annoyed.

"Of course I'm okay," he snapped. It confused her, because she had only asked him a question, and it was obvious that he wasn't. Why would he be angry at her?

The shuttle took off and the entire world went upside down. The IF people coming through the shuttle were upside-down, too, and then on their side. Her own butt wouldn't stay put on the seat. Zero gravity, she realized, we're going into space, there'll be zero gravity, everyone can float now. We'll have to stay wrapped up very tightly or everyone's going to bump their head.

She told the boy beside her as much, but he just glared at her. Offended she was talking to him at all. Why? Because she had asked a stupid question? Was she just being stupid? No. No, that hadn't been stupid at all, but it hadn't been what the boy had wanted to hear. Why not?

Because he didn't want anyone thinking he looked weak, she realized. But I said it and now he's afraid people are thinking about it.

That was stupid. "Don't be so stupid," she said. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay earlier."

"I'm not being stupid," he returned. He looked annoyed, probably because she'd interrupted his stupid conversation with the boy in front of them about whether they'd have to flap their arms in space (of course not). "Stop being such a _girl_."

"You stop being such a girl," Petra returned without even thinking about it. And then she did think about it. Stop being such a girl. But she was a girl, she couldn't change that. It shouldn't matter. He should know that if she was here that meant her test scores were at least as good as his were.

"Ugh, just shut up," the boy said.

Suddenly she felt it, this big hammer coming down: he was preparing to ignore her. In fact, almost everybody was ignoring her already. None of the boys in front of her or behind her had tried to talk to her at all. Nobody had even tried making eye contact. The only conversation she'd had was one she'd started.

She chewed on that for a minute or two, then threw the thought away. It wasn't important. She thought about more important things: what was coming up ahead, how the gravity worked. If the gravity even worked up there. What would their courses be? Would they be harder than Ground School?

She didn't realize until later that the others had been stupid because they'd been scared, because she hadn't been scared. She'd been too busy being angry instead.


	2. Chapter 2

Petra was angry for about a week. Quietly angry, the kind of anger that simmered in her belly but didn't go anywhere. Later, she'd realize this was because she was still trying to play by the old rules. Right now, it left her frustrated, confused, and quiet.

She got good grades. She always did. They were just a little higher than those of most of her launch group. Not spectacular, but high enough. Yet nobody congratulated her. She got no pats on the back. Her grades didn't earn her the love of her fellow launchies, who had clotted together into little sub-groups of boys all angling for a place in the pecking order.

Nobody laughed when she manages a witty rejoinder in class one morning. When she spoke up to give the right answer to some question the teachers thought up, all she received were annoyed looks. Like she was a fly that happened to land in their soup and they were trying to see if they should wait until it stopped flapping or show some mercy and scoop it out before tossing it onto the floor.

It made her angrier, but it was a hopeless anger.

It didn't click until the end of that first week. They'd have their first introduction to the game room soon. Excitement buzzed around the barracks like a living thing - like a fly, Petra thought again, not sure why that image kept leaping to her mind. There had been plenty of flies back in Armenia, but Battle School was sterile.

Nobody buzzing but us children.

There were two boys standing not too far away from her, just a few meters ahead. Talking about the games again, about all the stuff they'd overheard from the bigger boys. Petra ignored them most of the time - their talk was a mix of bragging and posture. She didn't have time for that. She had to study.

But then her name drifted by, and her ears perked.

"Why they even bringing Sister Petra in?" one of them - a squirt by the name of Lev - sniggered. "What's she going to do, little girl like that? Kill the buggers with exams?"

The other boy, Rob, let out a loud belly laugh. "Papercuts!" he said. "She'll kill them with papercuts, you'll see!" Stupid, to be so loud.

Except there was snickering coming from rest of the room too.

Not stupid. Powerful. Being loud meant that he didn't care what anybody else thought. And packed tight in this space with all these buzzing little boys, not caring what anybody else thought was power, because everyone else did. He was showing that he was in charge - that he didn't care whether Petra Arkanian was hurt or angry.

Well, she thought. I can be loud too.

"Rob, you still talking?" she bellowed. Mortification struck a moment later: now she was noticed. Now she was a sitting duck.

Rob looked surprised, but he covered it a moment later. "Eh," he shot back. "Were you hoping to copy off my tests, Sister Petra? Or do you want kisses?"

She was in it now. There was nowhere to go but forward. "Like any girl would ever kiss your stupid face," she said. "Are you said you can't impress me? Are you afraid you won't get kisses? Beaten by a girl, little boy Rob, I saw your numbers, you gonna ice out, they gonna send you home crying and I'm going to be laughing all the way at you and your dumb pig face and your big dumb brain."

There was this little brown Dutch boy chuckling several bunks away but the rest of the kids in the barracks were completely and utterly silent. She shrugged, pretended like she didn't care. Then she quite deliberately sat back down in her own bunk and turned on her desk.

"Sister Petra, she angry," Rob said a few empty seconds later. Too late, she thought. They heard the hesitation in you. They know you're scared of me now. You won't be the boss. Nobody's going to let a boy who looks that scared be the boss of them.

He hadn't been scared of her body: she was still shorter than most of them. And she had been cleverer before, said cleverer things. It wasn't that either. Her being angry had scared him. No, her being angry and not sucking it in, that had scared him, that had scared everybody.

Nobody was talking about whether she'd do okay with the games anymore. Some people shot her looks. She wouldn't be loved. But she wouldn't be weak. She would be protected.

There wasn't a more important lesson she learned but this: being angry protected her from being anything else. Especially from being a girl.


	3. Chapter 3

The battle room was pure chaos wrought out of steel and flailing children's bodies. Petra had the honor of being one of the last out the door. For a moment she was utterly terrified she'd slam right into a star-shaped conglomeration of six-year-old boys, breaking all her limbs- would that get her iced?

The suit was ungainly, inhibiting movement that should've come naturally to her. Her body wouldn't twist the way it needed to. Her limbs trailed behind her like she was some kind of malformed squid.

But she was lucky: one flailing hand found a grip on the wall, and instead of bashing her head on Rob's thicker one, she felt her body slamming against the wall. It didn't hurt, she realized; the pain she had just been bracing herself against was nowhere to be found. Well. That was useful.

Her body seemed to have ideas of its own, because before she managed to finish that thought, she went drifting back off. No, not drifting: bouncing. Her chest had bounced her right off the wall, and for a hysterical moment, she thought, oh, I'm glad I don't have breasts, mother always complained about them getting in the way.

The next thought was more useful. If she could bounce off the walls, that meant she could control where she went. How she went. How, though, how was difficult to master: her first attempt sent her spinning ineptly through the air, trying to make sense of her body as she found legs where arms were supposed to be. The second time it came easier; the third time felt as if she'd gotten the trick.

The fourth time her helmet struck the wall with a slight but audible crack.

She flailed for another handhold and found it. Held on to it for a little while, breathing heavily. Okay. Okay. What was next?

She moved her grip on the handhold, flipping her body around- but suddenly it didn't go so well anymore. Her left leg was stiff, unyielding. The only way to get it to move was to twist her upper body and let it follow. Had something gone wrong with the suit? Had she just destroyed whatever mechanism kept it moving when she hit the wall like that? That seemed like a technical oversight.

And then she heard the laughter.

Three boys, Lev at the front, floating in front of her at a slow speed. All of them were holding up toy guns. Lev pulled the trigger again, and now Petra could feel her right leg tightening up too. "Look," he crowed, "Sister Petra, she glued to the wall, are you okay, do you need a hand? No, no, you never need a hand- in fact, here, I will take a hand from you!"

He pulled the trigger a third time, but now he missed. Petra could tell because there was a little circle of light a few inches away from her head.

She had an opportunity, she realized. She reached blindly for the toy gun at her side and pulled the trigger.

A flash of light came out the muzzle. And suddenly at least one of the boys wasn't moving with any control anymore. Still as a plank, he floated on, his gun helplessly glued to his side. Petra felt a sense of victory dawning on her- but she was also confused. That hadn't been the small point of light that she had been struck with, and Lev seemed to realize it.

She pushed away from the wall before he could pull the trigger again. Then her arm froze up, the one with the gun in it- but her finger had still been poised over the trigger, tight, and if she pulled just right it could still fire.

Lev's suit froze up in front of her. A moment later, her own did as well. She felt the last boy's hands as he pushed her away, sending himself hurtling backwards with a surprised cry.

She couldn't do anything else. She was stuck, frozen. Now that the surprise of the moment was fading, a familiar emotion set in to replace it: anger. Why had this happened to her? Why couldn't they leave her alone? No- those were the wrong questions. She'd asked those before and it hadn't helped. How could she make them leave her alone?

She stewed, and she stewed, and she stewed. By the time one of the teachers had come in to unfreeze them she had a plan ready. Or at least an idea. Something better than just hanging around stupidly letting dumb fools take advantage of her.

\--

The first time Petra entered the battle room by herself, she brought nothing but her suit. She practiced over and over again, firing her gun while she was stationary, firing it while she was moving. Arms outstretched, the way she had accidentally done before; the way that had given her some small measure of revenge.

She felt satisfied by the end of the session: she could hit the same point on the wall at least five times out of ten. It wasn't perfect, and she would have to practice more, but it was a good start. It was definitely better than the flailing that had taken place during their first session.

The smug feeling lasted until she left the room and she found the little Dutch boy - Dink - sitting outside, waiting for his turn. He looked at her, and then he looked her up and down. She flushed with anger. Was he trying to humiliate her now, too? Well, she would strike first.

"You look good," she said. "You look at me good, up and down, I saw you yesterday, you flail like a confused pig, you gonna get slaughtered."

Dink rolled his eyes. "I'm not here to make fun of you like those dull bobs," he said. "You shoot okay. Better than me. I'm just wondering how many walls you plan to fight."

She flushed, but this time it was embarrassment, not anger. "You have your business, I have my business," she said, "Trying to score points off Sister Petra? Sister Petra has no points, Sister Petra is pointy."

But she understood.

She hurried past him while the last word was still hers. A stupid technique. But she wasn't sure how to answer. Yes, I do know I'll be shooting moving targets, but right now I don't have any, so I thought I'd just learn to shoot straight instead.

Actually, that would have been a great answer. But she had thought of it after the fact, and that made it meaningless. It took the shine off her accomplishment. It made her feel like a little girl again. Stupid, stupid Petra, can't think of anything by herself.

It would be easy to accept that she had been stupid, to feel chastened. She wouldn't do that. If Dink had struck, well, she wouldn't show that she had been wounded. She wouldn't let her blood get in the water again. She would accept that she had to find some way to do this differently, and she would do better.

Petra searched until she found something: balls, meant to be used in some stupid game or another. Not the game that mattered - one of those games kids used outside of the battle room. They wouldn't need all of these. She could use them.

They floated when she took them into the battle room. Not only that, but if she threw them with enough force, they would bounce around the room. Moving targets. That sense of accomplishment that had been so rudely taken from her returned, but cautiously. Her targets really were a lot harder to hit, especially when she was moving as well.

But she practiced. And practiced again. She always waited until the various cliques of boys from her launch group were finished, so that she could be alone. Sometimes Dink showed up again outside, but he said nothing, and she said nothing to him. She would tolerate his presence, nothing more.

She learned: how to match speed with her target. How to predict where a target would be seconds later. How to keep her arm steady while she fired. How to switch modes quickly from thin beam to large flash. She could feel herself getting better, day by day. She felt like a little girl less and less; now she wasn't just the girl who put on an attitude to look strong, she was a warrior. She froze more people in group practice than anybody else.

"You could do even better, you know. If getting better at the game is what you want."

Petra turned around so violently half her body didn't realize she was turning. It hurt a little; she was just happy she didn't go spinning again. "You shouldn't talk, little boy," she said. "You don't shoot as good as I do."

"No, but I plan better," Dink said, holding onto one of the handholds. "I see you. You're good. I think if I was a toon leader in an army, I'd be able to use you good. But you could be better, neh?"

"Eh," she conceded. "But you can't tell me how. I could tell you how, because my gun, she sings. But yours just warbles. It can't carry a tune."

Dink shrugged. "You could shoot me," he said. "I know you want to, anyway."

Petra blinked. "You read Petra's mind?" she snarked.

"I'd be a moving target, but I'd also be intelligent," he said. "I don't push off random. I think about where I go."

She snorted. "You think, you think," she chanted. "All you boys, you think you think."

Dink let out a sigh. "I'm not here to fight," he said, "You have balls so big, they're going to put them on your chest when you get older. The others think you worth nothing. I don't think you worth nothing. I think you can help me. So I want to help you."

She fired at him. His fingers froze around the handhold. But he didn't move.

"Well, what you waiting for?" she said, firing at his other hand. "You so smart, you think about where you go, why you lining up for the slaughter?"

His mouth twitched into a smile.

He moved.

She slaughtered. And then she unfroze him. And then she slaughtered him again.


End file.
